Seventy Two
by LucifersHalo
Summary: She left him in a world without her for 72 hours. He'd counted every one of those hours through agony and exhaustion; he'd never hated a number so much in his life. This morning, he was taking back the number 72 for them.


Title: Seventy Two

Author: IHeartCamsten (yes, I have a new name! Goodbye, Roguie, hello new world! Yay!)

Fandom: Stitchers

Pairing: Duh, Camsten.

Rating: M - not safe for work or kiddies.

Spoilers: Up to and including 3x01

Summary: She left him in a world without her for 72 hours. He'd counted every one of those hours through agony and exhaustion; he'd never hated a number so much in his life. This morning, he was taking back the number 72 for them.

Disclaimer: Not mine. My muse has loved many a man in her day, but not even she was smart enough to combine them all into the character that makes up Cameron Goodkin.

Author's note: Hidey-ho stitch mates! Is anyone else stuck in an endless loop of watching the Camsten kiss? I am pretty damned sure that I've fallen irrevocably in love with Kirsten through watching that scene on endless repeat. There is just something about the way Emma is playing her this season that makes me go squee in a brilliant display of emotional instability. As such... I have freed my muse from her hideaway in my backyard trees and am allowing her to play in the Camsten sandbox at will. If you want me to write something, hit me up with it. If you just want to read what I've already written, drop me a line and let me know. New fandoms are scarey, my friends... sometimes a girl just needs to know she's doing it right.

~~~?~~~

It was early, far too early for Cameron to be awake, but even with Kirsten tucked into his side, her breath against his throat, her hand over his heart, his body remained on full alert waiting for the other shoe to drop. Somehow, he just couldn't convince himself that this wasn't all just another cruel dream, and if he allowed himself to sleep for even an hour, she would dissolve, slip through his fingers, return to the shadows that made up her existence and tear her right out of his arms. Again.

It wasn't like last night had been their first kiss, it was their third, thank you very much. Residual emotion was a cruel bitch that seemed to enjoy tormenting his already battered heart. The first time, he hardly knew her; she was this cold, infuriating, incredibly hot amazon that walked into his life, insulted him, and then stole his breath right from his lungs. The second time, he knew her too well; she was a beaten, confused, almost broken version of herself, driven into his arms by loneliness and grief she could hardly begin to understand. Last night, the third time, he couldn't explain. His own actions were understandable; he was exhausted, emotionally wrung out, his heart aching from loss, pain, joy, fear, anger, guilt, and any other emotion the last three days had seen to throw at him, but Kirsten? Her actions were pure mystery.

They'd talked long into the night, trying to work through the hijack of their hijack, trying to figure out if it had been one of her misplaced parents reaching out to her. Her father through the quantum computer, trying to break their link? Her mother through whatever they'd managed to do to her brain, reaching out to her daughter while they both lay on the verge of wakefulness? Were they paranoid, and it was nothing more than a computer program fighting to maintain its programming through human interference? They had more questions then they could answer by the time Kirsten's eyes began to flutter closed and her head grew heavy against his shoulder.

He snorted to himself softly; of the two of them, it should have been him crashing cold on her. He'd spent seventy two of the worst hours of his life at her side. He'd given up everything to be with her: his girlfriend, his career, possibly even his life if the NSA had chosen to walk down that path. He'd gone without sleep, without food, without anything more than black coffee and his friends at his side as they worked to bring her mind home to them. They were no more than a day short of setting up a second fish tank and finding a way to shove his own mind into hers in a last ditch effort to bring her back, even knowing what doing the same had done to her mother. Thankfully, it hadn't come to that, but still, he'd spent seventy two hours in the worst hell he could imagine.

Now, laying in his bed, covers shifted through the night, leaving her pressed against his chest in nothing more than the white blouse she'd been wearing and a pair of panties so utterly sinful that he had no doubt they were purchased by Camille, the terror of those hours refused to fade.

He lay quietly for a few more minutes, watching as the horizon became lighter, knowing the sun wasn't far off. Soon she would wake up and he couldn't help but wonder which Kirsten it would be in his arms. Would she be the Kirsten he's always known, back to herself, haggard emotions guarded, powerful mind in overdrive? Or would she be the Kirsten that came to him last night, walls down, open, ready to trust in what had been building between them since the moment they met? His heart thundered in his chest, he could feel every beat. There was a burn of phantom pain and itch in the scar that held him together, hidden now beneath a layer of soft, blonde hair. He wondered how she could sleep through the noise of the weak muscle pushing an endless stream of blood through his veins. Couldn't she hear the terrified thunder of each beat, racing towards an unknown finish a mere inch beneath her ear? Couldn't she feel the rising panic flooding through his body, the way his fingers tightened in her hair, against her hip, his lips pressing a parade of soft kisses to her scalp in case she should wake and run?

Could he carry on normally, now knowing how she tastes when they kiss, knowing how she sounds when his tongue presses into her mouth, his hand in her hair holding her to him as he drinks thirstily from her lips? Could he look her in the eye again, now that he's seen a flash of their future and it's everything that he's ever wanted out of life? Could he honestly allow her to open her eyes and crawl out of his bed without having even tried?

He'd spent seventy two hours agonizing over whether he'd have ever have another chance to move forward with her, at the very least he wasn't going to just stand by and watch his worst fears come alive. Seventy two hours of waiting deserved seventy two chances to make this right.

With aching gentleness, Cameron shifted out from under the sleeping blonde, his lips curving with love as she snuffled in her sleep, rolling to her back, taking over the other side of his bed. He hovered over her for only a moment before lowering his mouth to the dip in her blouse, pressing it to the unmarred flesh of her chest, over her heart.

One.

He shifted slightly, moving his lips across her skin, sucking softly against her collarbone, tongue darting out to taste the blend of salt and Kirsten.

Two.

Another small shift and he nuzzled her throat, warm lips against soft flesh, rough stubble against smooth skin. Her breathing changed, his name on her lips as her body stretched out further, eyelids fluttering, a soft gasp on her lips.

Three.

He moved his kisses across her shoulder, peppering them so that every inch of skin received his loving attention.

Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Across her other collarbone, stopping only long enough to suckle her lightly, leaning back to see the matched pair of pale bruises standing out against her fair skin.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Her arms shifted, hand moving to the nape of his neck, holding her to him as his tongue dipped below the edge of her blouse, warm and damp against the flesh of her breast, nose nuzzling the shirt wider open.

"Cameron," she moaned lightly, her free hand finding his hip, gripping him with a strength that surprised him as she fought to have him cover her.

"Shhh," he breathed against the damp trail he'd left on her body, closing his eyes, stopping himself from looking to see if she was awake.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

He could hardly tear himself away from the swell of her breast, placing kiss after kiss against her, tongue teasing skin but avoiding her hardening nipple, wringing a gentle groan from her.

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

"Cameron, please," she begged as he kissed across her chest to her other breast, his teeth finding purchase against the swell, nipping her as her body slowly began to writhe against his sheets. He couldn't help the sound of his own groan as her leg wrapped around his, her body arching up, her core pressing against his thigh in an unbelievable sensation of liquid heat against his bare skin.

Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

"What do you need, Stretch?" he groaned against her breast, near desperate to press his body against hers but instead allowing her to move freely.

Her back arched again, her panties curling down her hips as she rubbed up against his thigh, his eyes rolling back in his head as she pressed her breast against his mouth, silently begging him for more. He shifted suddenly, covering her with his body, sucking the peak of her breast between his lips as his fingers gripped either side of her blouse and pulled, sending buttons across the sheets and to the floor before moving his hands beneath her and pulling her tighter to his mouth.

He took his time at her breast, suckling, nipping, kissing, struggling to keep count of the kisses as his blood rushed south. Heat ground against hardness, liquid separated from steel by only his boxers and her panties as she fought to gain a measure of control. Somewhere around forty seven, he finally lifted his lips from her skin, resting his chin against her breastplate and meeting her eyes with a silly smile.

She was fully awake, gloriously awake, body bucking into his, grinding up against him as her hands moved to either side of his head and she pulled him to her. Warm dry lips meeting soft wet ones, tongues instantly connecting, the flavor that was solely theirs exploding across their taste buds. One kiss turned to two. Two to five. Five to fourteen. She pulled at his hair so tightly, he expected to be missing patches as she met his kisses with a ferocity that was pure Kirsten Clark.

Finally he pulled away, his eyes so dark with need that she could hardly see the color, her normally pale skin so flushed with want that her own dark eyes sparkled like the brightest stars.

"I'm on a mission here, Sunshine, stop distracting me," he grinned down at her, pulling back far enough that he was able to inch back down her body, pressing kiss sixty two and sixty three against the swell of her breast. Sixty four amounted to less of a kiss and more of a damp path created by his tongue as he worked down to her flat stomach, nipping at her ribs, lapping at her naval.

She gasped and arched, the movement now sweetly familiar to him, allowing him to move with her and not lose his purchase against her skin. "I.. I'm distracting you?" she panted out incredulously.

"Mm hmm," he murmured against her flesh, fingers at her hips, tugging her panties down her thighs as his kisses moved lower. "You are always distracting me."

She whimpered as he moved away to pull her panties free, his lips now finding a new distraction with the soft skin of her ankle, his tongue finding a new taste against the flesh behind her knee. "I.. I'm the one that was sleeping," she teased, her voice a breathy blend of surprise and lust as he nipped at the skin of her inner thigh.

"I guess you have a choice, then," he grinned up at her, eyes darting to the warm, dripping flesh between her legs before back up to meet her own hooded gaze.

"Yeah, what's that?" she panted out lightly, hooking her legs over his shoulders, drawing his attention back to her weeping core, almost losing the shred of control she had left as his tongue darted out to lick his lips.

"We're at sixty seven. The goal is seventy two. That means you have five kisses left. You can continue distracting me and I might find my way to using those kisses against your hip, or the arch of your feet, or mmm make my way back up to your breasts and use them there."

"Or?" she gasped out, hips bucking towards him helplessly, trusting him so implicitly she knew even as he teased, he'd never let her down.

"Or," he breathed out, shifting so that his whiskers raked against her inner thighs, his words brushing hot air over dripping skin, "You can stop distracting me," his tongue darted out, lapping a slow path up between her swollen lips, the tip finding her clit, and making her buck fully against his mouth. "And let me educate you on the best use of limited resources."

"Good thing that I'm an exceptional student," she panted softly, lowering her head to her pillow and handing over her final shred of control.

"Oh, I'm counting on that, Sunshine," he grinned against her skin before setting out to show her exactly how good a teacher he could be.

~~~Fin~~~

 _Remember, much like magic, all muses come with a price. Don't make this muse have to stitch into you to get her payment, seems like an awful waste all around the board, doesn't it?_


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